Everybody loves somebody sometime
by phantom.ryder
Summary: 18yr old Grownup Chiyo and Kagura have romantic realisations about old friends while away at an American college. As the whole gang is getting ready to fly over, Chiyo and Kagura ready themselves for their impending romantic declarations... Chap 10 up!
1. Chiyo's day at the pool, pool, pool

Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm not making any money from writing this fic.

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Main Pairings (as it all stands right now) : Kagura/Tomo, grown-up Chiyo/Sakaki.

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A sleepy young woman with red hair walks into her dark dorm room, trying to be as quiet as she can. Unfortunately for her, dark rooms coupled with hours and hours passed by doing lab work didn't do too much for her coordination. With a trip, an oomph and a small strangled 'I'm ok' she suddenly finds herself on the floor.

Her roommate turns the light on and greets her with a sleepy smile.

"Chiyo, if you're gonna try and keep up this nocturnal lifestyle of yours you could at least buy some night vision goggles or something… Or you could turn on the light when you come in, either way I don't mind as long as you don't end up sprawled on the floor."

Chiyo stands up and dusts herself off before shooting a sheepish smile and shrugging at her roommate who was now lying on her back with both hands behind her head.

"I didn't want to wake you, you have that important match tomorrow right?" Chiyo asks sheepishly before wandering into their small bathroom.

"What worried I can't win? This good ol' American college didn't offer me a full scholarship for nothing you know", retorts her roommate with a humble yet confident shine in her eyes.

She was about to elaborate on how easy it was going to be for their team to win after all the training their coach had made them do this month, when her eyes suddenly caught a washed-up and pyjama clad Chiyo-chan making her way to her own bed.

'Wow that was quick, Kagura thought, 'She must be that tired'.

Letting her eyes rest a little longer on the unaware Chiyo, Kagura felt herself be filled with a mixture of awe and somewhat parental pride. Her young friend had certainly filled out very nicely during the last five years.

Of course Kagura didn't really notice that often as they saw each other everyday and it was too gradual for her to catch it, but once in a while the eighteen year old Chiyo would catch her off-guard with how grown-up and beautiful she had become.

Chiyo was now as tall as herself with hair a little longer than shoulder length. Although her attributes had not quite placed her in Miss Sakaki's group, Kagura knew that the young Mihama at least belonged in her own. She wondered what a certain Takino wildcat would think of that and smiled when she thought about the probable answer.

"Miss Kagura?", a sleepy voice asked.

"Hmm?", Kagura lazily replied, still amused at the fact that Chiyo would often revert to using polite titles when her brain was in sleepy mode.

"Light please." The sleepy voice continued, as its owner allowed herself a well-deserved yawn.

Silently obeying Kagura switched off the light and stared up at the ceiling.

"Good night Chiyo."

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The next day the two roommates made their way to the campus pool together, thanks to last nights lab session Chiyo didn't have any work to do today and chose to watch Kagura's race instead. She knew that after all this was the last race of the season and since they were graduating at the end of this year this race would be very important to the now very experienced athlete.

She looked over at her friend and smiled. Kagura caught the look and smile combo and raised an eyebrow.

"Chiyo I know I look good in the school colours but now really isn't the time to be thinking about asking me for an autograph…"

Chiyo-chan shook her head and rolled her eyes wondering if she was too old to be poking her tongue out in public.

A group of young freshmen holding pens and paper looked a bit dejected as they walked off after hearing Kagura's last remark.

Kagura of course oblivious to anything that didn't involve swimming or her friends walked on without incident.

As soon as they had reached the pool however a somewhat larger group of young fans were unavoidable and Chiyo took a seat in the stands as she watched Kagura try to handle all the attention she was getting.

Letting her eyes wander over the surroundings Chiyo thought back her first swimming in high school. She smiled and let the feeling of nostalgia wash over her as she thought about her old friends and their antics that day. For Chiyo, it had become a day that was hard to forget seeing as she nearly drowned… twice.

'Lucky Miss Sakaki was there to save me.' She thought. 'She always protected me, always made me feel warm and safe… I miss you Sakaki, you most of all.' Chiyo leaned into her seat and found herself imagining she was back in those protective arms.

A loud horn signaling the start of a race pulled Chiyo out of her nostalgic daydreams and threw her back into the commotion going on around her.

'Oh no… not these thoughts again.' she said to herself a little alarmed.

Shaking her head and looking around guiltily Chiyo tried to put the lingering thoughts of Sakaki out of her mind and tried to concentrate on the races. Luckily Kagura made it a little easier on her by winning all the time.

Chiyo put some of her cheering skills learned in high school to good use determined to keep her Sakaki filled thoughts out of her head, unaware it had captured the attention of all those around her. All of Chiyo's cuteness had now apparently translated into contest winning, natural beauty and charm.

More than a few girlfriends were being annoyed at the looks their boyfriends were shooting at Chiyo-chan, not to mention the few boyfriends that were suitably confused at the same looks their girlfriends also been aiming in Chiyo's direction.

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It wasn't long before the winners of each race were being handed their medals on the podium and Chiyo was back to thinking about Sakaki.

After a little while Kagura was able to make her way through the fans without having pens and paper thrown at her

"Yo." She said with several medals now hanging from her neck.

"You ok there?" she added as she caught Chiyo's spaced out look. "Not going all Osaka on me are you?"

Chiyo giggled at the thought and shook her head.

Kagura sat down next her and elbowed her friend gently. "Then what's up?"

"I had a weird thought today, well memory… thought memory thing. Before your race, I… uh, thought some."

Kagura raised an eyebrow. This was very unlike Chiyo-chan. Well spoken, eloquent Chiyo-chan.

"Chiyo you ok? Is it anything I can help with?"

Chiyo leant her head on Kagura's shoulder.

"Your shoulder's wet." She stated.

Kagura laughed and without another thought placed her hand on Chiyo's head.

Chiyo closed her eyes and was flooded by yet more 'odd feeling inspiring' high school memories about a certain animal lover.

She involuntarily sighed. "Miss Sakaki… I love you."

Then a few odd things happened. Firstly a giant question mark appeared above Kagura's head. This was then replaced with an even bigger exclamation mark.

While this was going on Chiyo-chans hands went up and covered her mouth, her eyes grew wide and there were several giant sweat drop shapes sitting on her forehead and the back of her head.

Kagura stood and pointed at Chiyo-chan before realising her rudeness, dropping her arm and taking to jumping up and down on the spot instead.

"Uh..", Chiyo started.

"Chiyo! You're in love with Sakaki!" Kagura exclaimed. Unbeknownst to her the giant exclamation mark above her head had started blinking.

"Since when? Since when were you in love with Sakaki?!" Kagura asked smiling.

Chiyo-chan took her hands off her mouth in order to be able to answer her bouncing friend in such a fast speaking pace that even Tomo would have been impressed.

"About two hours I think. Since before your race. I just started thinking about her then. No… that's a lie. I mean… these feelings… just… after a year into college… everyone was coupling up and I couldn't stop thinking about her… but I think it was more one of those loves that you try push right at the back of your head because it seems to be so right."

Chiyo takes a giant breath.

"but also so wrong because I'm a girl and normally that's ok by me except she's a girl and maybe I don't love her anyway.… thinking about her just makes me warm and fuzzy and I don't want to think about being with her anymore I just want to be with her and it's kind of like you and Tomo."

"Huh?" Kagura sat down because the exclamation mark had again become a question mark and the question mark was getting heavy.

"So, what you're trying to say is that you've been in love with Sakaki since college?" Kagura was still smiling, it had been a while since she's had any good news. Well, this was more big, every surprising news but there was no reason it couldn't be good news too.

Chiyo nodded silently still suffering from the disbelief that she had actually said aloud to someone else what she had been afraid to say aloud to herself.

Kagura nodded too for lack of anything else to say right at that moment. Until another statement crept its way into her head…

"Wait… what do you mean like me and Tomo?!"

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AN: Read and review please… just something I'm trying out. Will continue if anyone takes a liking to it. My first fic in a long long time. So try to be kind 


	2. A chase sequence and flying phones

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, I own none of the characters. Not making any money out of this.

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Chapter Two

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The day after the swim competition, announcements were made that a formal celebration would be held in honour of the graduating class and the success of the swim team.

It seemed that since Kagura was attracting so much national attention, tv crews and sponsors had flocked to the competition and paid the school quite well to interview the team and have them wear and drink their products.

Of course the faculty thought it only fair to somehow return these funds to the graduating class who had done so well for themselves.

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_Somewhere in town._

Chiyo and Kagura were having lunch at a local café both thinking about yesterdays conversation.

"Chiyo… are you gonna tell her?" Kagura ventured hoping that talk about it would remove the frown that had embedded itself on Chiyo's forehead.

Her friend shrugged it off.

"Umm, I don't think there's really anything I could say."

"Guess you could tell her how you feel about her. Invite her to the ball or something."

"We're in America. They're in Japan." Chiyo stated matter of factly, knowing full well in the back of her mind she could afford to fly all her friends on first class tickets over at least ten times just on one month's allowance.

Her parents were very generous as they knew Chiyo was not the type to blow money away on unnecessary things.

Kagura, who also knew this just looked at Chiyo and nodded.

The younger friend, feeling the need to add something to her defeated excuse for an excuse said; "Plus Miss Sakaki is older than me."

Kagura shook her head.

"That excuse was even worse than the first try. She's not that much older than you and ever since we met you in high school we never thought of you like that. And I know you well enough to get that you added that 'Miss' just to get your point across Chiyo."

Chiyo put on her determined face and shot off her last resort.

"I don't see you asking Tomo to the ball!"

"What's all this Tomo talk? That wildcat and I don't have anything between us! … like that!" Kagura replied crossing her arms over her chest.

"Besides, Tomo's in Japan." She mumbled.

Chiyo's eyebrow went up slightly but she was too worried about her own situation to explore Kagura's statement.

"Besides what're you gonna do? Fly them all over?" Kagura added with a laugh, trying to cover herself up. "Then we could all have some chest clearing love proclamations at the oh-so-perfect ball setting. I mean how's that gonna work out?"

Chiyo-chan remained silent for a while before she decided on a plan of attack…

Chiyo then fled the café.

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_Back in their dorm room._

"Chiyo what the heck are you doing? You made me chase you all the way up to our room just so you could jump into bed and sulk? That attitude isn't gonna get you anywhere!"

Chiyo-chan remembered her old philosophy and thought back to their last cute themed culture fest.

'It would have been Sakaki's idea of course.' Chiyo thought. 'She saved me again. Otherwise the whole class would have severely suffered… knucklehead style with Haunted Cafes and undead animals.'

"Chiyo you're spacing out on me again!" Kagura said.

The brunette was now getting quite worried because the usual 'world is my oyster' Chiyo was nowhere to be found and instead she was faced with 'oyster that was my world has just been chewed up and eaten' Chiyo.

Kagura was not at all happy with the Chiyo swaps and did the only thing she could do.

poke. … poke, poke

Chiyo removed her head from under the pillow and rubbed her arm.

"Kaguraaa!!"

The girl in question looked pleased with herself for at least being able to get Chiyo speaking again (if that half whine was counted). Then a sudden realisation hit the star athlete.

'Oh no.. no no no!' Kagura thought. 'She's not gonna… she is!!'

Chiyo pouted.

Kagura melted.

"I'm sorry Chiyo," Kagura said hurriedly. "I'll never poke you again I swear."

Chiyo sniffled.

Kagura panicked.

"Wait! Chiyo wait wait. Don't sniffle. It's ok!!" Kagura started pacing the room trying to think of a way to make her friend feel better. She saw a football on the floor of their room and wondered if Chiyo-chan wanted to learn to juggle a ball.

Then she shook off that feeling of deja-vu and looked once more at the troubled young beauty on the bed.

Chiyo's lip quivered a little.

"OH MY GOD!!" said Kagura running for the phone.

"That's it!! I'm gonna call Sakaki! I'm gonna call her right now, tell her how you feel then she'll come over, you won't cry and my insides won't melt anymore!" Kagura added, now searching for Sakaki's number while trying to ignore the quiver in her own voice.

'Damn it, I hate it when Chiyo gets upset. I can't handle it. If Sakaki can't be here to protect her right now then I will be.' She thought to herself while dialing a number.

Chiyo-chan had now gotten up and stretched out her arms looking as if she was going to give Kagura a hug.

Kagura melted once more and walked closer.

Chiyo grabbed the phone out of her hands and in a moment of insanity hurled it out their one open window.

"Chiyo!" said Kagura.

"I can't believe you were actually gonna call her!!" said Chiyo-chan.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" said Sakaki.

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A.N- Hope some people actually enjoy this update  more soon if anyone wants. I really wanted to show off how cute and caring Kagura is. Thanks for reading!

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	3. Park visits and twisted phone calls

**Disclaimer:** All the usual folks, please don't sue me I'm not making any money from this at all. All characters belong to their respective owners. I own nothing!

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"_Hello? Is anyone there?" said Sakaki._

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**Chapter Three**

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"Hey Sakaki who was that?" Tomo asked Sakaki as she sat down and put her cell phone away.

Yomi rolled her eyes at her best friend.

"Tomo, of course she doesn't know. She was asking the person on the other end of the line!"

"They could have answered already moron!"

"Why do you have to get straight into name calling already what are we in grade school?"

Sakaki remained quiet. She knew that if Tomo started something then the argument would take a little while to die down.

"No we're not but your brain might be!" Tomo added with a laugh.

She stood up ready to bolt just in case…

"Shut up you idiot!!" Yomi barked.

… Just in case she crossed the line again and inspired severe expressions of violent rage out of Yomi.

"Uh oh." Tomo said before running off while calling still calling insults behind her back. " That's it Yomi run! Maybe it'll…"

"Don't you finish that sentence!!" Yomi warned.

… "help you lose weight!" … Tomo finished.

"GRRARGH!!"

When they were out of sight (though unfortunately still not out of earshot) Sakaki checked her phone again just in case the person had called back.

'I'm not exactly sure, but I thought I heard Chiyo-chan's voice at the other end of that line.' She thought.

"It's been a while since we've seen Chiyo-chan huh?"

Sakaki nearly jumped out of her skin.

She had forgotten that Osaka was sitting right behind her. Well in the sense that she was lying down asleep more like.

"It sure was a nice day to go out for a picnic huh?" mused the young space cadet.

"Umm, yeah. It was a good idea. Maya is enjoying himself." Said Sakaki looking out at the playful wildcat, glad that Osaka had dropped her Chiyo-chan train of thought.

Sakaki did not at all like the idea that Osaka was channeling whatever was going on in her own head.

"Yeah… it has been a while since we last saw Chiyo-chan and Kagura." Said Osaka again making Sakaki jump.

"God Yomi you didn't have to hit me so hard! You barbarian!" said Tomo, who had just wandered back over rubbing her head.

Sakaki got up and walked off to play with Maya. Tomo and Yomi had returned bringing the warzone too close for her liking. And Osaka was starting to scare her.

"You're making me want to hit you again Tomo just sit down!" replied an exasperated Yomi.

"We graduate at the end of this year and all you're still as annoying as you were in grade school."

"Hey you're right we are graduating at the end of this year." Tomo nodded completely ignoring the last part of Yomi's sentence.

"Are we going to do anything special?" asked Osaka who found herself to be without someone to talk to.

"Like what go to Chiyo-chan's summer home?"

Tomo slapped Yomi on the back while wearing a gigantic smile on her face.

"Yomi you're such a moron." She said calmly while shaking her head. "Chiyo-chan isn't here. It would be rude to just show up at her summer house without her being there don't you think?"

"We went last summer! At your insistence!"

"Chiyo-chan said we could!"

Yomi collapsed in a heap.

"Pain is my punishment for arguing with an idiot…"

--

_About a hundred metres away._

"Maya… do you miss Chiyo-chan?" Sakaki asked while petting the wildcat and scratching lightly behind his ears.

"Meow."

"Yeah… me too." Sakaki admits before closing her eyes and falling into a light nap.

--

"So… anyway are we going to do anything special?" asked Tomo who was now set on the idea.

"What did you have in mind?" Yomi begrudgingly offered knowing that Tomo would have just kept on asking if she didn't acknowledge her question the first time around.

"I don't know."

"What a surprise."

"Why don't we fly over to America to see Chiyo-chan and Kagura?" asked Osaka who was back to lying on the grass 'head to head' with Yomi.

"We can't just go to America."

"Yeah! America! Let's go to America!!" Tomo said in a sing song voice.

Yomi shut her eyes tight.

"America, America! Let's all go to America!" Tomo sang over and over with Osaka joining her every few repeats.

"Tomo, you know that time in grade school when you asked if you could sit next to me?"

"America, Ameri.. huh? Oh yeah what about it?"

"I should have said no." Yomi deadpanned.

--

A cell phone starts ringing and the three girls all check their own.

"Not mine." said Osaka.

"Not me either." said Yomi.

"Mine," said Tomo.

The other two waited for to answer it.

… The cell phone kept ringing…

"Pick it up already!" said Yomi once again annoyed.

"I lied."

"What?!"

"I lied. It's wasn't mine at all."

"I can't believe you just lied to us like.."

"Hello?"

Yomi and Tomo both turned their heads to look at Osaka speaking on Sakaki's phone.

"Osaka that's just so rude…" said Yomi with disbelief in her voice.

"You can't just pick up other people's phones like that you know." Added Tomo, who was a little annoyed the thought hadn't occurred to her first.

Osaka just nodded.

--

In America

Kagura was hiding under her covers just in case Chiyo-chan returned from the bathroom.

"Hello? Sakaki is that you? Sakaki? Come to America Sakaki! I can't really tell you why… but I'm gonna need you to come to America!" Kagura said in a hurried whisper.

"It's not Sakaki." Kagura heard Osaka's voice at the other end of the line.

"Osaka listen to me! I have to hurry ok? Chiyo's just in the bathroom…"

"Put it on speaker! … Dammit! Gimme that!"

A couple of beeps later Kagura found herself talking to three of her friends. None of them the one she actually expected to be talking to.

"Kagura! Hey! It's Tomo Takino the wildcat high.. oh.. wait.."

"Idiot. Hey Kagura it's me Yomi."

"And me." Osaka added trying to keep herself from spacing out as usual.

"Guys hey I have to hurry. Is Sakaki there? I need to ask her a favour."

"Guess what Kagura! We're going to America!" Tomo said, happily ignoring whatever it was she thought Kagura was actually saying.

"Look I really really really need to hurry, wherever she is… this is gonna sound crazy but I'm gonna ask her to come to America."

Kagura heard the lock of the bathroom door click and prayed for mercy.

Chiyo-chan walked into the room, spotted Kagura on the phone and froze.

"Kagura! Who are you talking to?!" Chiyo asked pulling the covers straight off her friend, although she knew the answer as soon as she saw the look Kagura was giving her.

"Uh…"

"You called Miss Sakaki?!"

Chiyo took a deep breath and waited for sense to return to her.

… "You CALLED… Miss SAKAKI?!"

Unfortunately sense did not return.

She was about to pounce on Kagura when she heard a familiar voice, different to the one she'd been expecting.

"Hiiiiiii Chiyo-chan. We're coming to America!!!" Tomo yelled loudly over the phone.

--

('Chiyo-chan?') Sakaki asked, waking from her nap before ambling over still rather sleepy. Tomo's voice carried far indeed.

--

("Stop telling them that, nothing's been finalised yet…") mumbled Yomi.

Chiyo visibly relaxed.

"Tomo? Tomo! Ooh, I get it, you're inviting Tomo to be your date for the ball! Sorry Kagura I'm just a little jumpy. I thought you actually called Sakaki."

Chiyo-chan giggled before adding; "I think I would have fainted if I heard her voice."

Kagura shrugged and gave a nervous giggle.

"Hey is that Chiyo-chan on the phone?" asked Sakaki when she got back to her group.

Kagura's mouth dropped open and she was about to protect her head from the pain Chiyo-chan could possibly be wanting to unleash when she heard a 'thud'.

"Oh my God!! Chiyo!!"

"What's wrong? Is Chiyo ok?"

"Uh… fine. Chiyo… fine, sorry Sakaki I'm gonna have to call you back.."

Kagura throws the phone on the bed and kneels down next to a fainted Chiyo-chan.

"Oh my God you actually fainted… Chiyo? You're gonna kill me when you come to aren't you?"

--

A.N: Read and review if you like it  thanks for reading. More to come very soon!


	4. Deep thoughts for wildcats and owners

DISCLAIMER: I don't claim to own any of the characters. I'm making no money for writing this fic. -- Chapter Four 

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"Well that was odd," mused Yomi aloud.

"Hmm," added Sakaki.

Osaka smiled and her eyes followed a floating ray of sunshine.

"We're going to America!"

"You are?" asked Sakaki taken aback.

"We are not." said Yomi, now too tired to hit Tomo.

"Yes we are." Replied the Takino wildcat. "Kagura just invited us didn't you hear?"

"How did YOU hear? You were talking at her the whole time! One would think you'd pay a little more attention to someone you have a major thing for. And she did not invite us! Right Osaka?"

Without taking her eyes off the floating light Osaka replied; "Right. She didn't invite us. She only invited Sakaki."

Tomo for once, just looked thoughtful.

'God Yomi didn't have to say that out loud. So what if I miss Kagura? So what if I was so happy to hear her voice that I couldn't stop myself from talking even more than usual? It's only stupid Kagura. So what? Yomi you moron!'

"Me? Kagura invited me?" asked Sakaki surprised. 'But what about Chiyo? Did she invite me too?' she added in her head.

Unlike the rest of the girls it seemed, Sakaki had excellent control of her thoughts versus speech output.

"I wanna go too!" said Osaka who now seemed to be zero-ing in on a victim unseen by her friends.

'Me go to America?' thought Sakaki. 'I can't just, why would I? But if Chiyo did invite me…'

Her train of thought was interrupted by the resident wildcat idiot who it seemed had found her voice again.

"Yeah that's right I wanna go too! Come on Osaka we gotta go! It's a knucklehead reunion! And we get to see cute little Chiyo-chan again."

'Chiyo…' Sakaki's cheeks turned a pale shade of red. 'Cute little…'

"When do I go?" asked Sakaki flooring the other three. It was a little out of character to be so bold, but Sakaki found that she couldn't let this opportunity to see Chiyo again pass. After all, Chiyo had been her best friend through High school.

"What?" asked Yomi her voice dripping with disbelief.

Tomo was about to poke Sakaki, just to make sure she was real, but the taller girl was so lost in thought she probably wouldn't notice it anyway.

Then, in a moment of boldness and sheer stupidity, Tomo poked her. Sakaki didn't notice. Instead her head was busy repeating one thing…

'Chiyo-chan'…

Chiyo who had always been there for her, thoughts of High school, the trip to Okinawa, and Maya's first days with her, flooded Sakaki's head.

'Chiyo-chan was always there when I needed someone. She helped me with Maya, she welcomed me into her group, she was my first friend. She was the first person to ever call me cute. She always protected me, made me feel warm and comfy, she was like a cute little sister to me… back then. But what I feel now it's…

"Scary." Tomo had just finished saying.

"Osaka that's scary, could you stop staring out into space like that for a minute? It makes me feel like you're imagining something weird."

Yomi rolled her eyes at Tomo's 'for a minute'.

"Uh Tomo, why don't you just try to convince her to not stare out into space like that at all?" the more responsible one of the best friends questioned.

"Because Yomi! We have some very important matters to attend to you know! Like how we're ALL gonna get to America. I mean it's obviously a little farfetched even I can see that but… I wanna!!" Tomo said with a whine.

"Yes."

The other three stared at her yet again. Even Tomo was silenced by the look in Sakaki's eyes.

Sakaki now wore her determined look and squeezed one fist tight while holding it in line with her chest. As she had done whilst hoping to see some Iriomote cat souvenirs at the gift shop on Iriomote Island, as she done while sharing this hope with Chiyo-chan.

--

The aforementioned young redhead was now lying on her own bed staring up at the ceiling as Kagura eyed her guiltily.

"Sorry about the whole making you faint thing Chiyo."

Chiyo-chan managed to give her a weak smile. Obviously keeping her feelings for Sakaki underwraps for this long was beginning to take its toll. Kagura noticed this and sat down on her friend's bed.

"It would make me feel better if you hit me right now." The athlete said.

"Like Tomo would do?" asked Chiyo-chan, now with a little more of her natural pep.

"You've grown-up to be quite the smart-a.."

Kagura didn't finish her sentence as Chiyo had already begun threatening her with the pout.

She shook her head and smiled, giving Chiyo a little elbow.

"You've grown up to be quite the smart, upstanding, charming, beautiful, young woman." She said while looking Chiyo in the eye.

"Thank you Kagura." The young lady replied before leaning into her friend's shoulder.

"So what's the plan?"

"The plan?" Chiyo asked reluctantly lifting her head from it's comfy spot.

"We gotta have a plan right? To get the girls?"

Kagura didn't notice that she'd added an 's' to the end of 'girl'. But Chiyo did.

"Kagura?" she started, unsure of how to go on. "Are you just going to go for it?"

"For what?"

"Tomo."

"Ah. We're back to the Tomo talk."

"I mean… I only mentioned it yesterday because you two always seemed to have a certain affinity with each other."

"Huh?"

"You looked good together."

Kagura laughed it off.

"Nah, that's Tomo and Yomi. They're the ones that have been together forever. I mean she's cute definitely but you know…" she trailed off.

"And I've noticed that out of all the others it's Tomo that you keep in contact with the most." 

Kagura turned red at that little statement. She didn't think Chiyo knew about the little packages she often sent out to Tomo.

"I, uh..," she stammered. "Tomo likes souvenirs. I just send her some, they're not much. Anyway, you buy Sakaki cute things all the time." Kagura finished frowning at herself after her last sentence hit her own ears.

'I'm acting the same with Tomo as Chiyo does with Sakaki. Chiyo who just yesterday admitted to being in love with Sakaki. Am I… with Tomo?'

"Cute things?" asked Chiyo, bringing Kagura out of her daze. "You mean these?" She said, referring to the small shoebox she now had in her hands.

"I keep them under my bed. For when… I see her again."

"Chiyo…"

"I was going to send them. But I didn't know if she'd like them anymore. What if she doesn't even like cute things anymore? Kagura what if she doesn't like me anymore?"

"Chiyo only an idiot would stop liking you. And Sakaki is the second smartest person I know. I think you're pretty safe. Now cheer up a bit ok?" Kagura said with an encouraging smile.

Chiyo sniffled a little but nodded. "I'm sorry Kagura, you know I don't really cry this much anymore."

"I know Chiyo it's ok. So, are we going to think of a plan or what? It's not long before we graduate, and this ball thing is just before that. It would be mighty convenient if one friend could manage to come up with four plane tickets, while the other friend took some time convincing some people to fly over…"

Chiyo-chan looked up at Kagura and the older girl could tell that Chiyo's sniffles were gone and she now had a suspicious glint in her eye.

"Kagura, when you said 'think of a plan', did you actually mean 'convince me to go along with your plan'?"

Kagura smiled sheepishly.

"I suppose it could be interpreted like that…"

Chiyo shook her head but returned the smile.

"Good plan Kagura. I think I like it."

--

AN: Thank you for reading. More to come soon if anyone wants.


	5. Escapes and Secret Revalations

Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm not making any money from writing this fic.

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Chapter Five

--

It was the next day and Chiyo-chan was sat at her laptop looking for flights to the airport closest to their college.

She knew it wouldn't be possible to book any of them before Kagura had confirmed the dates everyone was free to make it… if indeed they could all make it.

As the hours passed by Chiyo-chan was getting increasingly worried about their plan. It was relatively easy enough for her to bring her friends over as it was graduation soon, and she did want them all to be there but she had no idea what she was going to say to Sakaki.

It had been quite a long while since they had seen each other and since Sakaki wasn't really the talkative type their few phone calls were often short and to the point.

Chiyo put her elbow on the table and her chin on her fist.

'Don't worry,' she said to herself. 'Sakaki always told me not to worry.'

Then she looked around just to make sure no one could see her before shutting her eyes and gently petting her own head.

--

Kagura was sitting in a lecture room mentally kicking herself, and physically kicking the chair in front of her.

'What the heck was I thinking actually coming to class today? Who cares about class now? We're about to graduate and it's still all study study. I mean come on now, yaay, study study.'

Kagura look confused, then repeated the last phrase in her head over a few times before finally remembering where it was she'd heard it before.

Visions of a summer home vacation filled her mind.

'Dammit Tomo, how can you be annoying me from so far away?'

She looked at the clock and died a little on the inside.

'Thirty minutes? That's it? I've only been here for thirty minutes?'

"Shh!" demanded the classmate next to her.

"What am I thinking too loud for you?," Kagura asked in a harsh whisper.

The classmate then pointed to Kagura's foot, which was still kicking the seat in front of her.

"Kagura you're cool and all and you do live with our college's resident gorgeous genius, but could you please quit wakin' everybody up? This is a two hour lecture you know."

Without a second thought Kagura packed her things and hit the deck opting to crawl on the floor and escape rather than staying around for yet more unnecessary suffering.

She knew that her lecturer had probably noticed the fact that everyone in her row had placed their feet on the seat in front for a few seconds in order to let her pass, and the fact that it probably looked a bit like a Mexican wave, except with legs.

Kagura then wondered what the heck she was thinking these thoughts for anyway when she had a few very important phone calls to be making.

With a quick 'thank you' nod to the person who had shushed her, Kagura ran out of the building and towards the dorms.

--

When she finally reached them she found Chiyo-chan asleep with her head on the computer desk and tiptoed around the room to get the phone and numbers she needed before sneaking out into the hallway.

Dialling the first number she readied her speech.

"Hello?"

"Hi Yomi, it's Kagura here listen about that trip to Ame.." Kagura was trying to be as succinct as possible, as she didn't want to confuse anyone with excess detail, but now she found herself being quickly interrupted.

"Kagura," started Yomi speaking as if they had seen each other that very day. "Tomo, Osaka and believe it or not, Sakaki have all gotten it into their heads that we're all flying over there to see you and Chiyo-chan graduate. I'm not sure what you think of that but.."

"I think that's great! Everyone can come? Wow I didn't think this would be so easy!"

"What would be so easy?"

"Convincing everyone to come."

"To visit you two? I think you would have had a lot more trouble convincing them not to come, especially Tomo if you know what I mean."

Yomi winked a couple of times for effect even though she knew realised Kagura wouldn't be able to see her. It was a definite 'must wink' situation for her and she figured it might just show through in the way that she delivered her statement.

Kagura remained silent. 'Is Yomi trying to tell me something? Maybe Tomo… feels for me too.'

"Kagura? Kagura? Oh man how many wanna be astronaut friends does one person need?"

As she was saying this Yomi heard her window open.

"Hey Yomi."

"Oh, it's you again."

"Who're you talking to?"

Yomi wordlessly passed the phone to Tomo. During this exchange, Kagura decided to finally say something.

"Yomi can I ask you something a little personal?"

Tomo look puzzled, covered the reciever and wrote down on a piece of paper 'Say yeah, sure', before passing it, along with the phone to Yomi who shrugged and obeyed.

"Uh, yeah sure."

Tomo then yanked the phone back and pressed it hard onto her ear.

"You see," Kagura began. "What I wanna know is… does Tomo like me at all? I mean, like that? Because I do, like her I mean. Like that."

Tomo looked shocked but happy for a short moment before leaning over to grab the piece of paper and pen.

'Say yes she does.' The blushing wildcat wrote.

"Yes she does," Yomi said into the phone that had just recently been thrown at her.

"Good." Tomo caught Kagura saying when the phone was back to being attached to her ear. "Thanks for telling me Yomi, but as a favour could you not tell her how I feel yet? I'd like to do it in a special way."

Tomo handed the phone back to Yomi, slipped out the window and for the second time during the week, the wildcat chose to remain silent even though she had something to say.

"Hey Kagura?," Yomi asked.

"Yeah?"

"Umm, back to the trip?"

"Oh yeah, uh, sorry. Chiyo-chan is just waiting on the dates you guys are all gonna be free. Then we'll order the tickets online for all of you."

"Really? Wow that's really generous of her!"

Kagura smiled. For once in her life Chiyo-chan was actually being quite selfish.

"Umm yeah I guess it kinda works out that way huh?"

"I'll say! A free trip for all six of us! Kaorin and Chihiro are extra excited actually. Tomo told them about it yesterday after she got home from the park."

"Kaorin?" Kagura asked aloud. "Kaorin who used to have that crush?"

"Used to? What do you mean used to? And what do you mean crush? Anyway yeah, her and Chihiro. They're really excited too. I mean Tomo asked them because we've all gotten much closer lately and we always felt bad for forgetting to invite them to things half the time."

"So Tomo invited them for a trip to America?!"

"Well yeah. What's wrong Kagura? You sound kinda mad."

In truth Kagura was more afraid of Chiyo-chan's impending reaction. The poor athlete was expelling giant sweat-drops all over the place.

'That Tomo… I'm gonna kill her right after I kiss her.' She thought.

"Kaguraaa? Hellllooo?"

"Right. Date. I need the dates of when you're all free so I can tell Chiyo when to book the tickets. The six tickets. The tickets of which there are six."

"November ninth."

Kagura ceased her panicking, though she still had visions of Kaorin's various attempts to gain Sakaki's attention.

"Well that's a lot more exact than what I was expecting." She said shaking Kaorin out of her head.

"Yeah well, as I say, people are excited." Replied Yomi her eyes being drawn to a packed suit-case in the corner of her room.

"I see." Said Kagura. "So the ninth is official for everyone?"

"Absolutely everyone. Even Osaka. It took us a little while get her on the same wave-length as us but luckily it worked out in the end."

"Wow, I'm actually pretty impressed with you guys Yomi. That's some crazy organisation in one day."

"Be impressed with Tomo, she's the one who's been dying to see you."

"Me too."

"What?" 

"Nothing. Anyway I'll talk to you soon Yomi. Chiyo and I will get those tickets sorted as soon as possible. Later!"

"Bye Kagura!"

They both 'hung up' their phones.

"Well that went well. Apart from the fact that Chiyo now has a borderline obsessive rival. Other than that yeah, I think that went well."

--

AN: Please review if you enjoyed the read. I'm glad to be writing for you again :D


	6. Airlines beware, Takino takes flight

Disclaimer: Not mine. I am not making any money from writing this fic.

--

Chapter Six 

--

Kagura was never very good with mathematics, but still, even she knew how the equations were going to turn out this time.

Six plane tickets, minus four for old friends, minus one for a good high school acquaintance, equals one remaining plane ticket.

One ticket for one Sakaki-obsessed Kaorin, the exact equivalent of what it would take to have one very, very stressed out Chiyo-chan.

Kagura looked over at her younger friend. Her sweet features were marred by some serious doubts.

Kagura sighed.

"Chiyo come on, let's go for a swim. I think we both need to relax our muscles."

"Sorry Kagura, I think you better go on ahead. If I did decide to go swimming today, I think I may just drown from lack of concentration." Chiyo said without much change in her expression.

"Come on Chiyo, you know that if it ever came to that I'll be there to save you." Kagura offered, puffing her chest out for a laugh.

Chiyo-chan smiled a little.

"Just don't expect any mouth to mouth right away because as you know, Sakaki doesn't arrive until next week." Kagura added, her own smile growing.

Chiyo stood up, stretched her arms and set about preparing her towel and swimsuit.

'I might as well go.' She thought. 'Nothing will good can possibly come from yet more hours of moping.'

She looked at Kagura who was looking at her.

"What? Do I have something on my face?," Chiyo asked.

"No, not yet." Kagura said before hurling a pillow at Chiyo's head.

"Oww! That hur…"

The second pillow was not that far behind the first.

"Kagu…"

smack

The third didn't drag it's weight either.

"Alright that's it!" exclaimed a red faced but smiling Chiyo-chan. "Two can play at this game!"

--

_Several sacrificed pillows later…_

"So should we go swimming now?" inquired Chiyo, who was now feeling a lot better now that Kagura had managed to take her mind off a certain 'cute things' lover.

A muffled 'oh you mean in water this time?' was heard from underneath a pile of deceased pillow carcasses.

'I dunno, I'm kinda comfy under this sea of pillow insides.'

Chiyo-chan gently bounced up and down a little on the large mound under the pile she was sitting on.

"Kagura how can you make something so simple sound so gross?"

--

At the pool 

Chiyo and Kagura finally made it to down to the pools but found them to be quite crowded.

Kagura of course, being the unofficial owner of the million-dollar college pool facilities, somehow managed to procure two lanes for their solely for their use.

"Kagura don't you think this is a little unnecessary?" asked a confused Chiyo.

"Unnecessary? It's stupid to race in one lane. Not to mention unsafe!"

"Race? You asked me to come here so we could race?"

"Well no. Not at first, but then you beat me so bad at that pillow fight and now I just have to get back at you." Kagura replied while stretching.

Chiyo-chan sighed but did some stretches as well.

"Looks like you've gotten a lot more mature… Miss Kagura…" She said, making sure the last part was drawled out, slower than the first.

The people around them, (and there were quite a few since Kagura was borderline famous), had now taken to reveling in the competitive air that the two friends were stirring up and took seats close to the two free lanes.

Kagura grinned. It seemed to her that Chiyo was more than willing to race her. She was glad at the fact since not many people ever offered.

Of course she was also aware that Chiyo had grown up to be quite the athlete surprisingly enough, with her natural talents becoming apparent during her mid-teens.

Kagura herself had taught Chiyo-chan everything she knew about honing her skills.

The young redhead cleared her throat.

"Are we ready yet?" asked a smiling Chiyo-chan who looked as if she was ready to get in the water.

"Chiyo! If I didn't know better I'd say you wore your bathing suit under your clothes. How so very.."

"Tomo of me?" Chiyo-chan giggled.

A blushing Kagura quickly ducked into the changing rooms calling "back in a second" over her shoulder.

Chiyo-chan did some more basic stretches and anticipated Kagura's return.

She had never beaten her friend in a race but had come quite close during her last few tries. Chiyo was even better some who considered themselves Kagura's rivals.

Kagura herself was glad that Chiyo's athletic self had filled out so incredibly well. She thought to herself more than a few times that Chiyo's parents must have endowed their child with pretty incredible genes.

At any rate she was glad for the friendly competitions in which she never had to hold back. The young swimmer would have surely felt the loss of Sakaki and high school sports fests a lot harder if Chiyo wasn't around.

"Hey! Let's go! And before you were telling me to hurry up!" Kagura said as she made her way to the start.

Chiyo followed her with a smile, both oblivious to the fact that the entire crowd that had gone there to swim that day was now watching them intently.

Whispers of: "Oh wow are they actually gonna race? I should have brought my camera!" could clearly be heard.

"Ready?" asked Kagura.

"Anytime you are." Replied her younger counterpart.

"On three?"

"One."

"Two"

"Wait Kagura…"

"Huh?"

"You should know, I've decided to dedicate this race to Sakaki."

Kagura smiled. She hadn't lost a race in a very long time.

"Well then Chiyo-chan maybe today's my day."

"One?" Chiyo asked by way of reply.

"Two" Kagura nodded.

"Three!" the crowd shouted.

At the sight and sound of breaking water, the crowd broke out into cheers.

--

… Surprising the lot of them, the Kagura fans went home disappointed for the first time since she arrived at the college.

'Dammit,' thought Kagura, grinning as she was exiting the pool. 'Maybe I should have dedicated that race to Tomo.'

--

In Japan a week later. 

The wildcat who walked on two legs was bounding about the place looking for her favourite sweater.

"Where could it be? I love that sweater."

"Tomo what are you doing?" asked her often disgruntled best friend.

"Looking for my sweater."

"I know that. You've been wandering around for the past half hour now, mumbling 'where's my sweater, I love that sweater,' every five seconds. What I really wanna know is why are you looking for it in my house?"

An irritated Yomi who was eager to leave for the airport demanded answers.

She hated to be late. Oddly enough her best friend was Tomo Takino so it was a surprise she hadn't gotten used to it.

"Yomi this is the last place I remember having it and I can't leave without it! It's my favourite. That idiot Kagura gave it to me for my last birthday before she left.

Tomo was rarely sentimental so she added the 'idiot' part just to balance out her statement.

The wildcat caught a glimpse of Yomi's expression and wondered why her friend was looking so angry.

"Tomo do you mean that blue sweater with the black on it?"

"Yeah."

"The one you wore here when you came over last night because I didn't want to go all the way to your house to wake you up five hours after your alarm went off?"

"Yeah."

"The one you're wearing right now?!"

"Oh."

"GRAAARGH!!"

--

Sakaki was busy checking over her list for the last time when she came upon the photo she usually kept in her wallet.

"Oh. It must have slipped out."

She stared at the photograph of her and her friends at Chiyo's summer home.

'The first time I went on vacation with friends.'

Sakaki smiled at the thought. Chiyo always made me feel so welcome.

Letting her eyes graze over each of the faces in the photo Sakaki thought.

'We've all changed so much. How much have you changed Chiyo-chan? What do you look like now? How do you wear your hair? Has your personality changed? Do you still hate athletics?'

Sakaki smiled at her last question. The only time she had ever tried her best at sports fests was when Chiyo needed her.

'Chiyo-chan… do you still need me now?'

Maya surveyed his owner from the top of Sakaki's bookshelf.

"Meow."

"It's ok Maya. I'm ok."

"Meaaaow."

Sakaki smiled at the wildcat.

"We'll get to see her soon."

Maya leapt off the tall book shelf with ease and landed close to Sakaki's legs brushing against them.

With one last look at the photo, Sakaki said to the girl in pigtails: "No matter who you are now, no matter what you've become, you'll always be cute to me."

She then collected her baggage, ushered Maya into his carry cage and went out to wait for the car.

--

_In a car near Sakaki and Maya's apartment._

"Kaorin are you sure this is the right way to Sakaki's?"

"Of course I'm sure Chihiro, now stop driving like a slug and go a little faster will you? We're going to be late at this rate!" replied her easily irritated friend.

Afraid that she was going to set off another disconcerting mood-swing in her front seat passenger, Chihiro decided to drive a little faster.

She had of course heard about the driving skills their old teacher Miss Yukari often bestowed upon the roads and it's many users, so Chihiro made it a point to drive with the utmost control.

She thought it odd that Kaorin was encouraging her to speed, after the stories she heard of their last summer break during high school, Chihiro figured Kaorin would be the last person to want any car to go faster.

As she had these thoughts, she was completely unaware that her backseat passenger, a Miss Ayumu Kasuga was thinking something along some very different lines.

'If we're going as slow as a slug then we'd be driving real slow. But if we were going as slow as a sea slug, then wouldn't we be swimming really slow?'

'But then sea slugs aren't really that slow at all are they? And for that matter they don't even swim. They crawl along the ocean floor, but they can swim though, when they want to escape from predators they swim into fast water currents that hurl them away real quick!'

Osaka made crawling, swirling movements with both hands imitating two sea slugs. 'Go sea slugs. Go.'

Chihiro saw this in her rearview mirror and decided not to ask anything. Her decision was based purely on the fear that Osaka might reply.

--

_At the airport._

The six girls were seated close to the departure gates waiting for their flight to be called.

Yomi was reading through a magazine, Tomo was poking her arm to pass the time. Poor Sakaki was in the middle.

Chihiro and Kaorin were sneaking glances at Tomo and Sakaki and as for the other friend, well she was in thought so deep it was likely that she'd soon be exhibiting signs of drowning.

It was guaranteed long flight, in more ways than one hundred.

Unfortunately for Yomi and the aircraft crew, only one out of two wildcats was travelling secured.

--


	7. Landings and Pilot requests

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of characters used. All are licensed to their respective owners. I am not making any money through authorship of this fic.

--

Chapter Seven

--

"Kagura do you think this is absolutely necessary?" asked Chiyo-chan while they were waiting at the international 'Arrivals' gate.

"Absolutely." Said her pacing friend.

Chiyo-chan turned her head and found herself looking at about twenty-five of her year-mates, all great Kagura fans, carrying welcome banners and balloons.

The young Mihama then turned her head away and proceeded to feel uncomfortable.

"Right," started Kagura. "Everyone know the drill? When I give the signal you wave the banners and then all together say 'Welcome to America!', got it?"

"Got it." They chorused in reply.

'Well they do look eager,' thought Chiyo-chan. 'And I guess the banners are really well done but… the matching T-shirts with everyone's faces on them are a bit much I think. There's a lot of Sakaki's staring back at me..'

Kagura shot glances at each member of her assembled team.

"Questions, comments?"

Someone cleared their throat.

"Umm excuse me?,' asked one of the more eager members of the troupe. "When do we sing the song?"

Kagura looked a little annoyed.

"Look, we've been through this. You sing the song when the band arrives ok?"

That statement was enough to drive even nervous Chiyo out of her seat.

"What song? What band?"

"Chiyo, relax ok? Just sit down and relaaax."

"Don't you try and use that soothing voice on me Kagura!"

"Look, all you have to worry about is taking care of Sakaki ok? Let me take care of the entertainment."

"Entertainment? For what, the entire airport?"

Kagura winced. The pitch of Chiyo's voice had been at a steady incline since they left the dorms early this morning and the athlete felt it was time to slow things down a bit.

She figured how calm Chiyo was at this point directly impacted on her personal safety, so of course Kagura had taken the necessary precautions.

She motioned for one of her 'team' to come over and hand her a small red bag.

Wordlessly, she handed it to Chiyo and gave the younger girl a little space to sort herself out before the plane's imminent arrival.

Chiyo-chan sat back down in her seat, shooting apologetic glances at Kagura's fans.

'Gosh, I've become more and more insufferable as the week's gone on haven't I?'

She sighed and opened the red paper bag, giving a surprised little smile as she saw what it contained.

'Mon-petit,' she mouthed before hugging the small, stuffed kitten.

She looked at Kagura who was making more preparations in order to make her friends' welcome an event to remember.

Chiyo went over to her friend and, having nothing to say to convey what she was feeling, hugged Kagura from behind.

The athlete smiled. "Thought you'd like it. Osaka mailed it a few weeks back."

"Osaka?" asked Chiyo surprised.

"Yeah, you might not think it but that girl's got some great situational reading skills."

"You called her and asked her to send it?"

"No, actually she sent it a few days after she called me out of the blue to ask if I wanted to know what Tomo's favourite food was."

Chiyo looked thoughtful.

"Hmm, well I believe Tomo's favourite food is… bananas," she said with a smile.

"Oh?," asked Kagura.

"Why? What did Osaka say?"

Kagura paused for a minute before bringing her hand up to the back of her head and giving Chiyo a sheepish smile.

"Osaka said Tomo's favourite food was… Japanese."

--

"Hey! Yomi! Yomi we're landing soon!"

'And soon I'll be able to see that cute moron Kagura!'

Tomo sat in her seat bouncing up and down and shaking Yomi's arm to wake her.

"It's ok Tomo, I'm pretty sure the aircraft staff don't need you to land the plane for them." Yomi said sleepily.

'Fly the aircraft? But I just want to see Kagura! Ka-gu-ra!' Tomo sighed. 'Everyone's a moron.'

"What the aircraft staff need to do is remember to restrain Tomo the next time we fly." Said Kaorin who was sitting on the other side of Yomi.

'Hey, what did Kaorin just say to me?'

"What did you say? How dare you say that!" retorted the extra wild wildcat. "Take it back right now or I'll tell you know who, about you know what, and you just _know _what that's gonna lead to…"

"Tomo you wouldn't because _you_ know that I'll tell the other you know who, about the other you know what and you just know what _that's_ gonna lead to!"

Tomo smirked and lay back on her seat, accidentally hitting the person sitting behind her for the four-hundredth time since take-off.

"Oh Kaorin, you got nothing on me anymore. She already knows."

Tomo beamed with pride.

'Yep. She knows and she's happy about it too!'

"You're bluffing! I call bluffing!" a panicked Kaorin proclaimed while shaking the unnerved Tomo's shoulders.

"Yomi tell her that I win!"

"No! Yomi! Tell her that I call her bluff! I call bluffing dammit!"

"I call both of you morons."

--

"Just what are those three doing?" Chihiro asked Sakaki from a few rows ahead.

"I'm not sure but whatever it is, I think it's starting to bother the other passengers." Said Sakaki who was holding mon-petit's older sister in her lap.

"Startin' to?" asked Osaka. "I haven't seen any staff walk by in a long time… I think they're just tryin' to avoid the complaints.

--

Chiyo, Kagura and year-mates were now taking up most of the seats nearest the arrivals gate. And much to Chiyo's chagrin and Kagura's delight, the marching band actually did arrive.

"Kagura what are we going to do with these people ten minutes after our friends arrive?"

"Relax Chiyo-chan. They have their own bus. Besides they have to back to college to initiate phase two of my welcome plan."

"I'm not even going to ask."

At that moment the loud speaker crackled and the girls' ears perked up.

"_Flight number JL5016 arriving from Narita airport has now landed."_

"Hey it's their flight!" said the two girls excitedly.

The loud speaker crackled again.

" _Ahem. In addition to the previous announcement: The captain of flight JL5016 has radioed in and requested that the two young ladies waiting to escort the princess of hyperactivity from the airport, please try to keep her in this country as long as possible. Restraints are not part of that Airline's policy and it is getting increasingly difficult to replace traumatised staff. Thank you, have a nice day."_

Chiyo gave a small smile and shrugged.

"Well… Tomo's here."

--

AN: Thank you for reading XD. Please review if you enjoyed it.


	8. Security Issues and Reintroductions

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of characters used. All are licensed to their respective owners. I am not making any money through authorship of this fic.

--

Chapter Eight

--

"Yaay we're here! Landed landed!" said Tomo in a sing song voice.

"Tomo would you stop that? We're walking through airport customs right now, you don't want people stopping us because we look suspicious do you?"

(Little did the girls know that a large number of staff from a certain JAL aircraft were also behaving in a manner similar to Tomo.)

"This country does have very tight airport security." Said Sakaki, hinting that she too was getting nervous at the possibility of having to explain to Chiyo and Kagura that Tomo was being detained."

The effortlessly suave young beauty was also now re-equipped with her wildcat. Luckily for her, her Veterinary University Professor had some connections that prevented Maya from having to be quarantined for two weeks. His exceptional bloodline might have helped a little too.

The six girls walked together until it was time for everyone to line up and have their bags checked.

Osaka suddenly stopped walking and stared straight ahead, giving everyone her 'I'm thinking something weird right now' look.

A few large sweat-drops appeared at the back of Yomi's head.

"Oh my God, we're all going to get arrested for being associated with suspicious looking people!"

Kaorin and Chihiro moved closer together and far, far away from Osaka and Tomo who had stopped to inspect one of the airport security dogs.

"You guys! Hey Yomi look! Here's another one of those dogs with super powers! Look at it's nose! Man you must have clocked a lot of mileage on that baby! "

No one knew why but it seemed to everyone that Tomo wasn't actually aware of the large, intimidating person attached to the leash of the airport security dog.

Sakaki though, as aware as she was of said large, intimidating man, immediately turned up at Tomo's side as soon as she heard the word 'dog'. Some habits were hard to break.

--

Miraculously enough, the girls made it through customs relatively unscathed and all were now walking through the last corridor.

Tomo looked as if she suffered the most as she was sniffling a bit. Kagura was soon to find out why.

'This is it,' thought Sakaki. 'Chiyo's only a few minutes away. 'I wonder what she'll be like… eleven hours and forty-five minutes sitting on a plane and the same things are still running through my head.'

Sakaki took a deep breath and stepped out into the open, looking out into the crowd trying to spot the young Mihama who had been running around in her mind.

She saw Kagura, then felt a gust of wind flow past her left side. It seemed that the Takino wildcat had also spotted her prey.

Looking at the people closest to Kagura, Sakaki lay her eyes on a girl standing on Kagura's right side. She was small in built, blonde and a little younger looking than the rest.

Taking another deep breath Sakaki made a beeline for the girl.

Kaorin's eye caught Sakaki's movements and she followed the taller girl's line of vision.

"Hey Chihiro, is that… grown-up Chiyo-chan?"

"Wow, she dyed her hair blonde!"

"She did?" asked Osaka standing beside them. "Or is she still being controlled by those pigtails? Maybe their change in colour signifies some sort of pigtail evolution!"

Yomi walked straight past the three for fear of being associated with them.

--

Tomo was wrestling through the last few people in the way and threw herself on an expectant Kagura.

"Kaguraaa!" Tomo screamed, laughing and crying at the same time.

"Tomo!" the athlete said beaming as she caught her wildcat. "Aww, hey you don't have to cry, it's ok…"

"No Kagura! It's not! They took it… I brought you some… But they snifflethey took it all! Our Chinsuko!"

Kagura took a step back to look at the girl before swooping in and hugging Tomo for all she was worth.

"You have no idea how much I missed you." She said.

Tomo sniffled a little more.

"Chinsuko.." she said before nuzzling into Kagura's shoulder.

Some of the athlete's fanclub looked a little heart broken.

Chiyo who was standing on Kagura and her new attachment wildcat's left side was thoroughly amused by their little exchange.

Well she would have been if she wasn't busy scanning the crowd for Sakaki.

The Kagura club was under strict instruction to be inconspicuous and not reveal their themselves until all six girls had arrived.

Kagura had stated that a premature 'Welcome' shout would be severely punished.

In any normal situation it would be difficult for the troupe to figure out who the six girls were amidst all the crowds, but since they were all wearing the uniform 'face t-shirts' it was a little easier on all of them.

Sakaki had now reached the young blonde girl who looked up at her in awe. She wasn't the only one. It seemed that Sakaki's 'cool' was still more than enough to rival Kagura's.

Chiyo-chan was a little confused but found herself rooted to the ground due to the mere sight of Sakaki.

"Chiyo-chan." The tall girl said.

The blonde just stared.

"Here this is for you." Sakaki said reaching into Maya's cage and pulling out a little blue box.

"I knew Maya would keep it safe." She said offering it to the girl who continued to stare.

'Why is she looking at me this way? Doesn't she like my present? But she hasn't even opened it yet… and her hair, it's different.'

Sakaki was getting a little disheartened that 'Chiyo' hadn't even reached for the box but she didn't say anything.

Then the blonde girl smiled up at her and said in a asked voice: "Umm, why are you giving me Miss Mihama's gift?"

"Umm.. Chiyo.." Sakaki began.

The girl nodded.

"Miss Chiyo Mihama. She's standing right over there." She said with a smile.

Tomo and Kagura looked at Sakaki and the young girl.

"Hey where's my present?" they asked each other.

At that moment, or more accurately, the moment just after, Yomi, Kaorin and Chihiro stood in front of Kagura and Tomo, all three puffing from their recent bout of crowd wrestling.

Osaka was standing still somewhere in deep thought.

Yomi looked behind and wondered about her friend.

'Man, I hope that moron doesn't go and get herself robbed.' She thought but relaxed as she saw Osaka standing and speaking with Kagura and Tomo. 'Ok. So her powers now include teleportation. How so very excellent for me.'

Chiyo-chan ran a hand through her soft red hair and placed a hand on a confused looking Sakaki's arm.

"Miss Sakaki, hello to you." She said before bending down a little. "And hello to you Maya. It's been a while hasn't it?."

"Meaow."

Sakaki's mouth dropped open the tiniest little bit. She could feel her cool exterior cracking but as soon as she saw Chiyo-chan's eyes her mouth shape changed from a small 'o' into a large warm smile.

"Chiyo-chan, this is for you…"

"Miss Sakaki, you shouldn't have." Chiyo said smiling and reaching into her own pocket and handing Sakaki a small package of her own.

"Hey," Kaorin said to Chihiro. "How come Miss Sakaki isn't talking to Chiyo-chan anymore? And who's that tall girl? And why are they giving each other presents?"

Chihiro shrugged and the both of them nearly jumped out of their skin as twenty-five college students plus marching band, wearing their faces on t-shirts, broke out into an alarmingly loud chorus of "Welcome to America friends! We hope you all have a wonderful stay."

Kagura beamed after she had mouthed the words along with her fanclub.

Tomo look rather amused at the performance and was even more excited to find that the group had now proceeded to break out in a rendition of Brian Litrell's 'Welcome Home'.

Of course Tomo had no idea who Brian Litrell was and wondered why they were being sung a song that seemed to be about a son coming home to his father, but she appreciated the effort, same as the other girls.

Especially Yomi. Who seemed to be eyeing up one of the young men designated to play the drums.

Tomo saw this and made a mental note to tease her about it later. At that moment she was too busy smiling at Kagura and Chiyo.

'It's good to have all my morons in one place.' thought the Takino wildcat.

--

RE: AR 2007-02-12 ch 7, anon. – In reply to your review regarding FAA security checkpoints, I apologise for my mistake in placing Chiyo, Kagura and team at the arrivals gate, the presence of the security checkpoints at American airports completely slipped my mind. The airport I had mistakenly pictured was Auckland airport which has all passenger security checkpoints enclosed within the arrivals gate. Beyond that is where the 'welcome committees' wait. Sorry for my lack of research and thanks for taking the time to review. All are appreciated.


	9. On the road and in a very expensive car

--

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of characters used. All are licensed to their respective owners. I am not making any money through authorship of this fic.

--

Chapter Nine

--

After the welcome committee had finished phase one of Kagura's plan, the athlete shuffled her fanclub on a bus and sent them on their way to prepare the next phase.

"Right," she said. "Everybody ready to shoot off to our college? We'll go in two cars ok?, five of you guys with me and one with Chiyo."

Kagura winked at Chiyo who was too busy smiling at Sakaki to argue with her, or hear anything she just said in fact.

"Oh no!" said Osaka. "Chiyo-chan must have inherited Miss Yukari's driving skills!"

Tomo nodded her agreement.

"That must be it. Well Sakaki, good luck! You too Maya, I know we're not close but, best to say these things now just in case." she said and nudged them toward Chiyo.

"Idiot Tomo," mumbled Yomi.

"Why is Miss Sakaki going with her?" asked Kaorin and let out a 'hmph' when no one replied.

The rest of the girls just shot worried glances at Sakaki and at the young Mihama who was oblivious to anything that was said.

"Huh? Is something wrong?" she asked.

"Umm, I'll just ride with you ok?" Sakaki said.

"But.." Kaorin tried to get in.

"Come on Kaorin." Said Chihiro as she ushered her friend in Kagura's general direction.

"Wait, I'll go with Chiyo-chan as well."

Kagura shrugged.

"Ok, but I'm not quite sure where you're expecting to sit Kaorin. Little Chiyo over there drives a sports-car. Two seats only." She said with a grin.

"You do?" asked Sakaki.

"I do?" asked Chiyo-chan, but turned the question into a cough when she saw Kagura's glare.

"She does!" the athlete confirmed.

"Come on Chiyo, let's show everyone your car ok?" Kagura said, as she went over to her friend and subtly placed a set of keys in the younger girl's back pocket.

Unfortunately the movement wasn't as subtle as she thought it would be.

For one thing, Chiyo jumped at the contact, which drew two very important people's attention.

Sakaki was distressed to find that her eyes immediately narrowed at the sight.

'Did Kagura just… Chiyo's…??'

And Tomo, well it was lucky for Chiyo-chan that she was a good friend of the Takino wildcat, otherwise someone could have quite possibly been injured.

"Well Chiyo-chan come on, show us your car." Said Yomi wanting to break the odd, unexplained tension.

"Car. Right. Show you my..."

Chiyo-chan reached into her pocket, grabbed the keys and pressed the 'disarm' button for the car alarm.

She expelled an incredible sigh of relief when she saw that a car's headlights lit up and signaled which one the keys actually belonged to.

'The world makes sense again.' Chiyo thought for a moment.

Unfortunately for her, the moment didn't last long.

Yomi and Chihiro immediately rushed to the car.

"Oh my god Chiyo-chan, this car is amazing!!"

Even Osaka and Kaorin were impressed.

"Wow, I had no idea you drove something like this! What kind of car is it?" the latter asked.

Chiyo-chan's mind blanked on her, about half a second before she was about to say 'Car', Kagura stepped in.

"It's a Porche Carrera GT." she said with pride.

The athlete looked over to Chiyo-chan as she expected the girl to be shooting her thankful glances.

Chiyo shot her daggers with her eyes.

Kagura gulped and tried to read what Chiyo was mouthing at her as the others admired the car.

'_Kagura I can't drive that!_'

'_Sure you can!_' Kagura mouthed back. '_It'll be fun!_'

'_Who's is it?_ _Did you steal it?!_'

'_What?_'

'_Did you steal it???!_'

'_Huh?_'

Chiyo looked like she was about to sit under the car and hope someone would move it.

Osaka suddenly turned up by Kagura and whispered in the girl's ear.

"She wants to know if you stole it."

"Oh, thanks Osaka." She said.

'_No! I borrowed it!_' Kagura replied back to Chiyo, before doing a double take at Osaka and looking sheepish.

The other girl just smiled and wandered back over to the car.

'_Borrowed it?_ _Does the owner know?!_' Chiyo asked, still mouthing.

'_I'll explain later!_'

The athlete gave her friend the thumbs up and considered herself lucky she was out of Chiyo's arms reach.

"Right, ok people we can admire Chiyo's awesome, very expensive and in any case should not be destroyed, car later." She said.

"Onwards to mine!"

With the other girls following Kagura off to her truck, Chiyo stood staring at the 'her' car and Sakaki stood staring at her.

The taller girl smiled at Chiyo's adorable expression.

"So you're still really cute after all." Sakaki said.

"Oh I look cute?" asked Chiyo. "I thought my face was going for more an 'afraid' expression."

Sakaki laughed and Chiyo smiled up at her.

The slightly taller girl noted that Chiyo almost didn't have to smile 'up' at her at all.

"So, I must have given you back some of your height somewhere along the line." She said.

Chiyo blushed.

"I can't believe you remember that."

"It's kind of hard not to, besides I have a lot of nice memories of you."

Sakaki blushed at her little slip up.

Chiyo let it slide though. She just shone on the inside.

Anyway compliment or not, she knew that at that moment she had more pressing issues to deal with.

"Umm should we get in the car now?"

"You remember which one was yours?"

Chiyo poked her tongue out at Sakaki.

"I caught your soundless conversation with Kagura."

Chiyo-chan didn't say anything, instead she just smiled at the girl she's spent so much time thinking about.

"And now you're here, talking to me." She said, verbalising her thoughts.

"You didn't think I was going to talk to you?" Sakaki asked, a little saddened at the thought.

"No, it's not that, it's just that you never used to be much of a talker." Chiyo replied.

"I guess I just didn't have anything much to say, or not really anyone to say it to."

Chiyo-chan cocked her head to one side before flashing a smile.

"Guess you were just waiting for me to grow up huh?"

Sakaki shrugged and took her turn to poke her tongue out at Chiyo who giggled.

"I haven't ever seen you do that before."

"Neither have I. Pretty sure it's the first time." She replied with a smile before giving a little laugh.

Chiyo-chan shot her a questioning look.

"We still haven't gotten in the car." Sakaki said by way of answering the look.

"I think it's just our subconscious trying to prolong our lives."

"You really can't drive it?"

"I don't know.. it's probably not the safest thing to undertake but.. maybe if we go really slow?

--

On the road 

"Do you think I'm doing ok?" asked Chiyo-chan from behind the steering wheel.

Sakaki smiled at her.

"I think you're doing great."

Chiyo's cell phone started to ring and she put it on speaker.

"Hey Chiyo!"

"Kagura I'll have you know I've just taken mine, Maya's and Sakaki's lives in my hands."

"Yeah? Well I'm sure Sakaki doesn't mind."

"Don't kill her!" called Kaorin.

"Geez Kaorin sit down would you?" said Chihiro.

"But hey guess what?" Kagura continued, trying not to listen to the two bickering in the back seats.

"What?"

"You're on tv!"

"What?!"

"Yeah isn't it great? One of the traffic helicopters spotted you. You're going really slow Chiyo. I think they found it really funny a car that's got a top speed of 205mph is going 40, but that being said, maybe you should speed up a bit? 'Cos the radio stations are getting calls and stuff, you're really pissing some people off."

"Yeah Chiyo," Tomo said from Kagura's front passenger seat. "This one guy called in and told everybody listening that there was this idiot driving really slow to show off their car!"

"I'm not going slow! I'm trying to survive!" said Chiyo with a pout.

Sakaki meanwhile, tried to hide another Chiyo induced blush.

"What's wrong?" Kaorin asked from the back. "Doesn't Chiyo drive her car very often?"

"Uh… no," Kagura covered. "It's pretty new."

"Pretty new," Chiyo mumbled. "Pretty not mine more like."

'God everything she says, everything she does is still cute to me.' Sakaki thought.

"Well that's all I called for Chiyo! Try to get home before graduation ok? Bye!"

--

AN: Thanks for reading XD. If you enjoyed it please review, all comments are appreciated. Some people might have found that the Sakaki/Chiyo banter was a tiny bit OOC but I tried my best to keep it in line.


	10. Nervous questions and happy answers

--

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of characters used. All are licensed to their respective owners. I am not making any money through authorship of this fic.

--

Chapter Ten

--

Kagura pulled her truck into the dormitory driveway and ushered her friends into the building to see her room.

"Hey guys, the people next door have gone off on a pre-graduation road trip so their room is free. I talked it over with the dorm monitors and they said it was fine for us to borrow it for a while."

"Is the monitor a member of your fanclub Kagura?" asked Yomi

The athlete just laughed it off.

"Anyway so two rooms, we'll split up into groups of four ok?"

"I'll go with you moron," said a smiling Tomo.

"Why do you keep calling me that Tomo?" asked Kagura as she playfully hit the wildcat's head.

"Two reasons, one, it's been a while since we've seen each other, so I have to say it extra just to keep my average up and two, you're a moron." Tomo replied with a smirk.

"Don't worry about it Kagura," said Yomi. "It's just an idiot wildcat's way of saying she missed you."

"Aww ain't that cute?" Osaka said with a smile.

"Little Tomo missed her Kagura?" teased Kaorin.

The wildcat turned red and considered laying a Yomi-style uppercut on the girl, it was lucky for Kaorin that Tomo had grown up enough to consider these things.

And after all that consideration, Tomo hit her anyway.

"Tomo! You didn't have to hit her that hard!" said Chihiro. "Kaorin? Are you ok? Oh my God Tomo you knocked her out! Lets just get her into a room ok?"

"Sure not a problem," said Kagura who felt a rather sorry for the girl. Tomo could hit pretty hard when she wanted to.

Although, the athlete wasn't one to pass up a convenient opportunity and helped Osaka and Yomi carry Kaorin into the room next door to theirs.

'Ah Chiyo, you're gonna love me for this.'

"Since Chiyo and Sakaki aren't here yet why don't you four just get settled into that room? I'll give the idiot wildcat a talk and then we'll bring some ice over ok?"

"Hurry Kagura her eye's changing colour," said a worried Chihiro.

Kagura grabbed Tomo's hand and dragged her off into the other room.

"Tomo, Tomo, Tomo, you really didn't have to hit her that hard you know," the athlete said as she took an ice pack out of the freezer.

"She stepped into my punch," said the wildcat apologetically.

"She did not Tomo, you took a step towards her and hit her in the face!" Kagura said with a laugh.

"You're just as bad!," Tomo said. "She's lying in there with a black eye and you're standing here with that ice melting in your hand while chatting me up."

"Hey, I'm not!" Kagura stated before she realised that Tomo was just teasing her. "Come on you," she said before dragging the smirking wildcat over into the other room.

Kaorin had come to and was now sitting on the bed glaring at Tomo as soon as she walked in the room.

"Oh, you're up Kaorin… sorry about before," said the wildcat, holding out the ice as a peace offering.

Kaorin accepted it and smiled a little.

"It's ok Tomo, I should have know that teasing you was a dangerous thing to do."

The girls then settled in for a bit with Kagura serving drinks and just catching up with her old friends.

No one mentioned or questioned why her hand was still attached to Tomo's.

--

About an hour later, Chiyo, Sakaki and Maya who had been released from his cage, walked up the stairs and into Chiyo and Kagura's room.

Noticing that no one was in yet, but Kagura and Tomo's bags were in the room, Chiyo called the athlete's cell phone.

"Hey Chiyo," she said. "Where are you guys?"

"In our room, where are you?" Chiyo asked while smiling at Sakaki, motioning for her to put her bags down and take a seat.

"We're in the room next to ours. Geez Chiyo I was wondering what was taking you so long. You could have told me you were taking her around for walk around campus."

"Kagura we're in our room…"

"Take your time ok Chiyo? Let us know when you get back. Oh and remember we still have that thing later, so don't tire her out too much ok?"

Chiyo could just hear the winking and nudging in Kagura's voice and blushed despite herself.

--

Kagura hung up her cell phone and explained to the rest of the girls who were sprawled around the room. The most sprawled of them all was Osaka who quickly fell asleep on one of the beds.

"Chiyo and Sakaki have gone off for a walk round the campus, they'll meet us here after a little while."

"They probably wanted to stretch their legs after all that time sitting in that car," Yomi observed.

"Yep, that's probably it," agreed Tomo with a smile even though she was sitting so close to Kagura that she heard the phone-call conversation very well.

--

Sakaki gave Chiyo a questioning look as soon as she hung up the phone.

"Oh, they're umm next door at the moment."

Before she could shoot off into a nervous rant about why it would be best to stay in the room for a little while, Sakaki beat her to it.

"Would it be ok for us to stay here a little bit? Maya's a little tired after being in a cage for so long, I think he just wants to get used to his new environment."

Chiyo just flashed her a bright smile.

"That's fine. Would you like a cold drink and a snack?" 

"Oh it's ok, we had a meal on the plane. I'll take you up on the drink though."

Chiyo-chan went off to grab a can for Sakaki and herself before taking a seat next to the older girl.

Maya jumped up and sat on Chiyo's lap.

"He must have missed you too." Said Sakaki.

Chiyo-chan stroked his head and smiled.

"Well we did have a few good moments back then. Didn't we Maya?"

"Meow."

"Just like we did?" asked Sakaki.

"Just like we did," Chiyo-chan confirmed.

"I'm glad you and Kagura asked us all to see you graduate. It was very generous of you."

Chiyo-chan blushed.

"Oh no, not at all. Actually there's also another reason I wanted to invite you over."

Sakaki smiled encouragingly at the young Mihama, who she was sitting rather close to and waited for her to go on.

"You see the swim team, did very well with their, you know… swimming, and umm.. there's this.. ball.. thing.. coming up soon and I don't know how you would feel about that.. or me.. or going to that with me.. and what I'm trying to clears throat.. mumble, is that.. would you.."

The door flew open and suddenly, there stood Tomo smiling and pointing at them. She took a step forward and closed the door behind her not bothering to move her arm from the 'pointing position'.

"Hello lovebirds," she cooed with a smirk. "Thought I'd come to check on you and see what.. you .. uh oh," she finished up saying as Maya gave her a rather unfriendly look, leapt off Chiyo-chan's lap and started walking towards her.

The authentic wildcat was probably taking her cues from Sakaki and Chiyo-chan, neither looked very happy to see Tomo in the room.

"Ok, well I'll be going now…"

"Tomo what are you doing over there?" asked Kaorin who was poking her head out the door of the other room.

Tomo shot an apologetic look at Chiyo and Sakaki.

The youngest one of the three sighed and stood up.

"Hello Kaorin. Tomo just caught us as we were putting our things away. We're back from our walk now."

"You carried your things with you the whole time?" asked the ever-suspicious Kaorin.

"No, uh we left them in the car at first," answered Sakaki who was now standing at Chiyo's side.

"Oh ok," Kaorin said finally relenting.

Tomo did look like she felt rather bad and mouthed 'I'm really sorry,' at the other two. The wildcat was fond of making waves but she didn't mean to spoil their moment.

Chiyo-chan smiled at the girl and shrugged. She was about to follow Tomo into the other room when she felt a hand on her arm and Maya wandering around her legs.

"If you want me to," said Sakaki softly, "I'd be happy to go to the ball with you."

--

AN: Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. Please review if you enjoyed it XD


	11. Fanclub Surprises

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of characters used. All are licensed to their respective owners. I am not making any money through authorship of this fic.

--

Chapter Eleven

--

Chiyo, Sakaki and Tomo entered the dorm room next-door with the latter immediately walking over and attaching herself to Kagura.

"So, now the love birds are here, what's this big surprise you've got Kagura?," Tomo asked as she shot smiles at Sakaki and Chiyo-chan.

"Lovebirds?!," asked Kaorin in a rather irritated manner. "Who are you calling lovebirds?"

"Yeah, they're nice," said Osaka. "Did you know there are nine different species of lovebirds? masked, fischer's, peach-faced, Nyasa…"

"Nevermind Osaka," said Kaorin who was now even more irritated.

"And then there's Black-cheek, Red faced, Abyssinian, Black collared, Madagascar…" 

Kaorin sighed.

"Alright Kagura, please tell us, where are we off to now?," she asked just wanting to get in a subject change as quickly as possible.

Kaorin often wondered how Osaka could know so many random facts about so many random things and yet be unable to remember the day of the week sometimes.

Tomo watched amused as Osaka derailed Kaorin's irritation with her little 'lovebirds' comment and crashed it right on through to idiot-induced frustration.

Sakaki and Chiyo were both a lot less amused and the latter put an arm around Tomo to stop her from saying more stupid things that could get Kaorin shooting her 'monster' face.

"Uh hey," said Kagura who was upset at Chiyo-chan stealing Tomo from her side.

The wildcat was a little too confused at that moment to argue.

"Chiyo! Are you… taller than me? How can this be? Osaka stand here!," Tomo said as she motioned for Osaka to come over.

"Huh? Ok."

Osaka stood back to back with Chiyo-chan and got another surprised sound from Tomo.

Maya who had been wandering the current dorm room everyone was in, climbed up Chiyo's leg a little as if to check if Chiyo needed him to attack Tomo.

Sakaki shook her head at the true wildcat and Maya sat down next to her feet.

"This is just not right!," continued Tomo. "Chiyo-chan is taller than Osaka too! Kagura how about you?"

"Umm yeah, I think she is a tiny bit taller than me too."

"Nooo! There's something not right about this!"

"Tomo how can you only be noticing this now?," asked Yomi. "We've been here a while you know."

Tomo looked a little upset.

"But, when she put her arm around me… I felt small," she said softly.

The rest of them shuffled closer to comfort her but then the girl shot off another Tomo statement.

"She's taller than me! Chiyo-chan! Why aren't all of you more surprised? This is weird!"

'Wow. Tomo can sure go on about nothing for a really long time,' thought Chihiro as she shot a look at Kaorin who was, as expected gazing at Sakaki.

Kagura, who felt it was time to end Tomo's… and everyone else's suffering, pulled Yomi over to Chiyo-chan. Tomo stared but immediately calmed down.

Taking Kagura's arm as she walked, she led them out the door.

"It's ok now! Yomi's still taller than you Chiyo," called Tomo over her shoulder.

Kagura shot a sheepish smile over hers as if to apologise for the wildcat, who now seemed permanently attached to her arm.

Yomi smiled and let out a deep sigh.

"It's great to have someone else feel they need to apologise for Tomo," she said before following the other two out.

--

A few minutes later, they arrived at the University gym with Kagura's fanclub/ welcome committee all standing at the entrance.

"Oh look it's the singing people," mused Tomo aloud.

Yomi looked around to see if she could spot the drummer that had caught her eye at the airport. Chihiro who noticed this, gave her a nudge.

"Looking for anybody in particular?," she asked with a cheeky smile.

"No! Just getting used to my surroundings!," Yomi said a lot louder than was necessary to convey her message to a person about a mile away.

"Did that sound convincing?," asked Yomi right after.

"No," said Chihiro apologetically. "Not even to me, and I'm usually pretty easy."

Yomi nodded to signal that she had accepted her defeat.

"It was that drummer I saw at the airport," she admitted to Chihiro. "I really feel like I know him from somewhere."

Tomo, who had the innate ability to hear anything and everything Yomi didn't want her to, flashed a smirk.

"Yomi's in love with the drummer guy! Hey where's that drummer guy! Yomi loves you! Come out!"

As much as Kagura loved being close to Tomo, her self-preservation instincts took over and caused her to release the girl.

Kagura's sudden detachment gave her a quick hint and Tomo saw Yomi's uppercut coming towards her.

She tried to 'Matrix' her way out of it but Yomi landed it anyway.

Chihiro winced and wondered just how many people were going to get knocked out on this trip. Sakaki and Chiyo-chan worriedly looked down at Tomo and at Kagura who was immediately at her side.

Kaorin wondered why Chiyo-chan and Sakaki happened to be doing everything together at the moment and Osaka spotted a young man from the crowd that had gathered nearby, took him wordlessly by the hand and brought him to Yomi.

"Here Yomi, I found one for you."

"Umm, no Osaka this boy isn't the one I was talking about," said Yomi who seemed to be more bothered by Osaka's continuous weirdness rather than by Tomo's current incapacitation. After all, the wildcat had recovered from much worse.

The boy walked off a little disappointed that he wasn't the one and a lot weirded out that he just got offered to a stranger.

Tomo came to a minute later and had to be quickly subdued by Kagura. Yomi had won the first round and the wildcat was not amused.

--

Once they entered the gym the girls saw that Kagura had organised a little bit of an event in their honour, or rather an extremely large event that saw the gym transformed into a stage with rows and rows of seats.

Seats that people were currently sitting in.

Chiyo-chan who recognised exactly what the event was just by looking at her surroundings decided to seek out Kagura immediately. She found the athlete by the stage once again preparing her fanclub who were the staff of the event.

"Kagura! What are you planning now?"

"Nothing."

Chiyo looked incredulously at her.

"Ok so it's not nothing. Don't worry! I'm gonna help you get Sakaki as a date for the ball! It'll be great!"

"But I… she already," Chiyo began.

"Thank me later Chiyo!," the athlete said before jumping up on the only place she knew Chiyo wouldn't follow, that is of course, the stage.

Kagura took the mic and winked at Chiyo who didn't know how she should be feeling right at that moment.

"Welcome to the swim-team's Charity auction! All for a good cause as we will be donating all the funds raised to the local zoo!" 'Just to give our Sakaki a little more incentive,' Kagura added in her head with a smile.

"And just to make today extra special," she continued. "Not only are we auctioning brand new, signed swim team paraphernalia, but we are also auctioning… drum roll please!"

A young man stood at the side of the stage and gave Kagura her drum roll.

"Is that him?," whispered Chihiro.

"Yeah that's him," Yomi replied.

"Oh ok, I'll go get him," said Osaka.

"Sit down moron!," Yomi hissed.

"… we are also auctioning, the swim team aaaaand our very own drummer boy, Kazuki over there!"

Roars of applause erupted from the crowd.

The young man smiled and waved signaling that he didn't mind being a surprise addition to the line-up.

"That's right! Win one of us and you get to take us to the upcoming ball! And as an extra treat, as we all know she herself has a lot of fans out there, we are also including in the auction, the fabulous, young, gorgeous, Miss Chiyo Mihama!"

Chiyo-chan paled.

She definitely knew what she should be feeling now, lots and lots of anger.

Unfortunately for her, some bright spark had decided to shine a spotlight on her and at the swim team who had just walked on stage. She knew she couldn't kill the athlete just yet.

Kagura motioned for her walk onto the stage and since she really had no other option rather than to look like she was turning her back on a good cause, Chiyo made her way up and sat on one of the seats the fanclub had readied.

As soon as they were all set up, Kagura passed the mic on to the actual auctioneer and sat down between Tomo and Sakaki. The latter who was mentally counting how much money she had exchanged at the airport.

"Uh, Kagura shouldn't you be up there too? Swim team captain and all?," Kaorin asked from her seat next to Tomo.

Kagura nodded.

"Just gotta tell Tomo something," she said. She discreetly handed the wildcat some money, which should be more than enough to 'win' her as a date Kagura gave the wildcat her instructions.

"Just wait until they start to auction me then use this, don't bid straight away because we don't want it to seem too fixed but make sure you win me in the end of course."

Tomo smirked at her.

"Ok. If I feel like."

The athlete gave her a joking elbow.

"Fine, if you don't win me, someone else gets to take me to the ball!"

That seemed to get the wildcat's attention as she now looked up at the stage with a determined air about her.

Four of the swim team's members had already been auctioned off and they, along with their new dates all looked very happy on stage.

"Wow that was quick," said Sakaki. "And they all went for quite a lot too."

Kagura laughed.

"We have all our very own group of loyal fans I guess," as she said this the athlete subtly placed an envelope behind Sakaki. So subtly that this time, no one noticed her actions, not even Kaorin or Osaka, who looked like she was concentrating on something else entirely.

--

Kazuki, the drummer had now been auctioned and his 'winner' was being urged to walk up on stage to greet him.

Kagura dropped her mouth open as soon as she saw what had happened.

"Idiot Osaka! He was supposed to be for Yomi!"

The space-cadet smiled.

"Hey! Yomi look I got a date for you!," Osaka yelled out as she walked up to the stage.

The young man followed Osaka's line of vision to Yomi and smiled at her.

"Yomi! It's been a long time. My 'winner' is a friend of yours?"

Tomo looked up on stage, at the young man, at Osaka then at Yomi.

"Hey, is it just me or did Osaka just set Yomi up on a date with her distant cousin?"

The girls all looked at Tomo who rolled her eyes.

"Kazuki? How many Americans do you know who's name is Kazuki? I didn't recognise him from before because he died his hair and everything, but with the spotlight shining on him like that it was pretty easy to right now."

"Ohh, this makes sense," said Kagura who was now also making her way up to the stage. "Well it doesn't make sense but now I understand why."

--

The next person to be auctioned was a very emotional Chiyo-chan who had a lot of heavy thoughts running through her head.

'OhmyGod OhmyGod OhmyGod OhmyGod OhmyGod OhmyGod OhmyGod OhmyGod OhmyGod'

As soon as Kagura got up to the stage the auctioneer handed her the mic.

"Right, since I, Kagura am her best friend and roommate, I thought it would be fitting for me to auction her off to the highest bidder."

The crowd laughed and Chiyo-chan coughed 'ex friend' several times.

"Right, lets get this auction started at, lets say one hundred dollars?"

It was a pretty high place to start as the other candidates hadn't gone for a lot more than a hundred.

Chiyo-chan seemed more popular than even the athlete thought however as the bidding got up to double that in no time at all.

'Oh crap, how much did I give Sakaki?'

"Three hundred!," yelled someone from the crowd.

Kagura paled as soon as she realised that person wasn't Sakaki.

'Yeah, I gave her about three hundred.'

"Three-fifty!," someone else shouted.

"Uh…" said the athlete as she saw her life flashing before her eyes. 'My God, Chiyo's gonna kill me… she's gonna kill me! She's gonna walk right on over here and…'

'I'm gonna kill her!,' thought Chiyo-chan. 'But what would be the best way? A slow way, yes, that would be best.'

An unmistakable voice cutting through the noise of the crowd interrupted both the girl's thoughts.

"Five hundred dollars!"

Kagura's head shot up and her eyes met Tomo's. Had her wildcat just bid on Chiyo?

Tomo shook the envelope in her hand, pointed at Sakaki and nodded with a smile.

"Uh… sold! To Sakaki!," she said, a little worried as now she had an idea about where the money was going to come from.

Chiyo-chan on the other hand was so relieved that she threw her reservations to the wind and ran down to hug Tomo and Sakaki.

Kaorin looked shocked.

"I'm shocked!," she said. "Miss Sakaki, are you really taking Chiyo-chan to the ball?"

"Uh yeah," the taller girl said as she smiled at Chiyo. "I mean, the auction decided it I guess."

Now, out of all the girls, the mastermind was the most worried.

Kagura sat up on stage and tried not to cry.

'Now I can't go with Tomo,' she thought with a pout.

"Alright, for Kagura we'll start with one hundred dollars!"

"One thousand dollars!," the president of the fanclub yelled out.

Kagura's mouth dropped.

"What?!, I can't match that!," yelled an incensed wildcat. "Not allowed! I only have five hundred!"

"Actually, the angry young lady in the crowd is right," said the auctioneer. "As members of Kagura's fanclub and as the principal organisers of this event, none of you are allowed to bid on the main auction. Sold for five hundred dollars!"

"Yaaaay!!," yelled Tomo as she bounced up to the stage to collect her disbelieving prize.

Kagura shot the auctioneer a thankful smile before being engulfed in a hug.

"See! Told you I'd win you."

"Yeah, but five hundred each for me and Chiyo? I didn't give you and Sakaki that much…"

"Relax!," said the grinning wildcat. "We're on holiday here remember? And Chiyo-chan paid for our tickets. Think we'd come empty handed?"

Tomo motioned for Kagura to look down at her friends. All except one were smiling at her, Yomi was giving her the thumbs up, even Chihiro had her wallet out.

Kaorin was the only one had a feeling that all wasn't quite right. 'There's a ball? Sakaki is going? And not with me?!,' the poor girl thought dejectedly.

Kagura sighed and walked off the stage with Tomo with people still applauding.

"So everything turned out well?"

"Of course!," said the wildcat. "Except for the fact that you made everybody pay the sum of a thousand dollars just to go out with people who they were pretty much already gonna go with."

Kagura thought about this and gave her usual sheepish smile and 'neck-rub' combo.

"Umm, it was all for a good cause?," she offered.

Tomo smiled at her. "It was for a great cause," the wildcat agreed.

"All in all there's only that Yomi got a date with her cousin glitch. And I'm sure we'll sort that out some other time. Right now I'm busy," she said and pulled Kagura down for a quick kiss on the lips before wandering off.

The athlete grinned and as her eyes caught Chiyo-chan's the younger girl smiled back at her. Right after she'd mouthed 'You're a moron,' of course.

--

AN: Thanks for reading!! Please review if you have a minute. More updates to come very soon XD


	12. Kagura: Mastermind Extraordinaire

Chapter Twelve

--

Chiyo-chan, Kagura and their classmates were sitting in their last lecture for the entire year. Well it was more like the last chance to for the lecturers to say their formal good-byes to the graduating class.

Graduation day was looming and everyone in the room had important thoughts in their minds. For Chiyo however, they were less of the 'where to now?' variety and more the, 'what the heck do I wear to the ball' variety or more importantly, 'how do I behave?'

It seemed to Chiyo-chan that the easiest part of the whole set up was asking Sakaki to be her date, or rather watching Kagura make Sakaki 'buy' her at an auction.   
Now it was time to decide how she was going to take their 'semi-more than friends' relationship into full blown 'officially more than friends' territory. 

Chiyo-chan sighed and counted down the top ten reasons this would not go her way. Reason one, Sakaki may think that this was going to be a group date scenario and behave accordingly, this would of course not give them nearly enough bonding time. Reasons 2-10, Kaorin was going too.

--

For Kagura the situation was a little easier, neither she nor Tomo ever had any major issues with telling things as they were. In fact the wildcat's behaviour at the auction and her well received kiss at the end of it, ensured that both she and Kagura knew where they stood.

This thought of course led the athlete to start thinking about her obviously worried friend who was sitting next to her. Not that it wasn't easy to tell already, but the fact that Chiyo-chan's right eye would break into a twitch every once in a while really gave her away.

'Hmm, what to do, what to do,' the athlete thought. 'Gotta give Chiyo and Sakaki that one last push into happy, fluffy romance.' Kagura smiled at the thought

'Maybe I should just trick them into kissing each other? Yes… excellent. But how? Spin the bottle? No, that's a little too cliché. Besides the whole 'bottle' aspect might be a little dangerous, in the worst case scenario, Chiyo-chan just might hit me with the thing. That would not be good.'

--

Tomo, who was sitting in the little garden area close to the lecture room was wondering something along the same lines as Kagura… except of course, in true Takino wildcat fashion.

'I gotta give those two idiots the last push. If only I could trick them both into not being morons… but how? Hit them both on the head with a bottle? No, then I'd get in trouble again. What to do, what to do…'

"Hey, Tomo, what are you doing?," asked Yomi who had just gone for a walk to catch up with her cousin.

Chihiro and Osaka who were laughing together about something closely followed them.

Tomo gave Yomi a questioning look with regards to the two and their private giggling but the other girl just gave a shrug before sitting down on the bench.

The wildcat stretched out and made herself more comfortable before she realised that something had gone very, very wrong.

"Yomi! What the hell are you all doing here?"

"Umm, Tomo is that supposed to be some sort of a trick question? We're sitting here, on a bench, enjoying the sunshine."

Tomo grabbed Yomi's face.

"Tomo! Get the hell off my face!"

"What's wrong with all of you?!," asked the wildcat continuing her panicked rant and keeping her friend's face firmly in her grasp.

"Oww… Tomo, starting to hurt."

"Hey, Tomo why are you so upset?," asked Chihiro.

Tomo finally let go of Yomi's face just so she could point at the three girls and one very, very confused second cousin sitting in front of her.

"You, you, all of you! Morons! I can't believe you left Kaorin and Sakaki alone together!"

Giving each other some rather quick 'uh, oh' looks, the girls ran off in the direction of the dorm rooms.

Kazuki sat alone on the bench and scratched his head.

"Umm ok, I'll see you guys later…," he half-heartedly called to the girls.

--

Sakaki hadn't gone with the other girls on their walk as she wanted to do some shopping on her own, she didn't know anything about the upcoming ball until just a week ago so of course she hadn't packed anything appropriate.

She was going to take Maya along with her of course, but as she didn't know how American shop owners would react to a wildcat wandering around in their stores, she left him with a very capable wildcat-sitter… Sakaki wasn't a fan of the literal meaning, but in that situation, the saying 'two birds with one stone' definitely made sense to the girl.

Unfortunately, the shopping trip didn't have very much of a happy ending for Sakaki. She didn't really know what she was looking for so she just spent the whole time wandering around the small boutiques near the University and wondering what Chiyo-chan would want her to choose.

--

_In the dorm rooms._

A dejected Kaorin was sitting on the couch with Maya watching her intently.

"Dammit, it was my perfect chance to get in some quality alone time with Miss Sakaki and this happens… just my luck. And on top of it all… Maya looks like he wants to eat me…"

--

Yomi, Chihiro and Tomo had reached the dorms and the wildcat knocked loudly on both doors.

Unfortunately for Osaka, she did not have Chiyo's luck when it came to a great transformation regarding athletic ability and she found herself slowly climbing the stairs, exhausted from all the sprinting.

Tomo however, thanks to all her pumping adrenaline had energy to burn.

"Which one are they in?, she asked as she grabbed Yomi's collar. "Which one are they…"

"Geez Tomo what is it?," an annoyed Kaorin asked as she opened one of the doors. "I was going to open the door anyway, you didn't have to try and knock it down."

"Kaorin you moron! What have you done with…"

"Oh hey Kaorin!," said Chihiro, while giving Tomo a look.

"What have you and Sakaki been up to while we've been gone?"

Kaorin gave Tomo a 'what's your problem?' look but then she just shrugged it off.

'Maybe wildcats just generally don't like me today,' she thought.

"Kaorin? Hello?," Chihiro asked before repeating her previous question.

"Huh? Oh yeah, I've been here with Maya the whole time, Miss Sakaki went out for a bit. She said she had to go shopping for an outfit for that damn ball."

Tomo, upon hearing that Sakaki and Kaorin had not been alone all this time, distanced herself from a very irritated Yomi and collapsed on one of the beds.

--

By this time, Chiyo and Kagura had finished their last lecture and were making their way out when they over heard some people talking about the dresscode to the ball.

"Well, I'm not sure what I'm gonna wear but since it's the swim team's bash, do you think there's some sort of a theme?," a young man asked his friend.

Kagura gave a sly smile at this idea.

Chiyo-chan caught it and suddenly felt very nervous.

"You're planning something," she stated.

Kagura nodded.

"It's got something to do with me…"

Kagura grinned.

"Kagura stop it!"

"Come on Chiyo, you're gonna have to trust me on this one. Besides, when have I ever let you down?"

Chiyo-chan glared at her friend.

"Really now Kagura, do you actually want me to answer that?"

Kagura by this time had stopped listening and instead, seemed as though she was giving someone instructions on her cell phone. As soon as she had hung up, the university loud speaker gave a crackle before a voice was heard.

"_Welcome to your University radio station 'BFM 90.6', this is a special live report as we've just had news from the upcoming ball's executive committee president!! It seems that all couples are urged to match their outfits, as there will be a prize for best dressed! So get those imaginations running boys and girls, the night's sure gonna be off the hook!"_

Chiyo-chan gave Kagura her best incredulous look and was about to shoot off an insult or two when she found herself being 'shushed' by the athlete who put a finger on her lips.

"_Also we'd just like to give a shout out to a Miss Tomo Takino who's going to be having the pleasure of taking none other than our swim team's hero of a captain to the ball! Congratulations Miss Takino!"_

Chiyo finally opened her mouth just to let out one, quick statement.

"Kagura, you are unbelievable."

--

AN: Thanks for reading! Please review if you have a minute, I hope everyone will like Kagura's planned matching outfits for our heroes. You'll find out next time! I'm rather excited about it actually… would any one like to hazard a guess as to what they'll be wearing?? XD


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